When parents pay twice to escape public schools, the verdict is in



Those with the means are fleeing America’s public schools. A recent article in The 74 reports that enrollment has dropped more in affluent Massachusetts districts than in all of the state’s low- and middle-income communities combined. That “rich flight” shows up even in a state whose schools routinely rank near the top nationally.

The 74 points to a July 2025 study by Joshua Goodman and Abigail Francis, published in Education Next, that compares actual Massachusetts enrollment to what pre-COVID trends predicted. The authors found a clear shift away from public schools and toward nonpublic options. Public-school enrollment came in 1.9% below the projected level. Private-school enrollment ran 15.6% above projections. Homeschooling rose 50% above projections.

Parents want options. If conservatives are serious, they will treat the school-choice win included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act as a starting point, not a finish line.

Charter enrollment moved the other way: 18.9% below pre-trend predictions, though nearly flat compared with 2019. The study notes that Massachusetts law caps the number of charter schools statewide and limits how much district funding can flow to them, which likely constrains charter growth even when demand rises.

The income story is the most revealing. Enrollment losses proved “substantially larger” in high-income districts. Top-income districts lost nearly 50% more students than the lower-income four-fifths combined.

The authors also compared Massachusetts to national 2023 data and found similar patterns, suggesting that this is not a Bay State anomaly. It is a national trend with a clear lesson: Families with options are using them.

That matters for at least three reasons.

First, affluent families are choosing private schools even though they already pay for public schools through taxes. That means they are paying twice — once to support a system they are leaving and again in tuition to exit it.

If families with the greatest ability to navigate public-school choice still choose to walk away, that should raise a blunt question: How many more middle- and working-class families would leave if they could afford to?

It also raises another: How much bigger would charter schools be if Massachusetts did not restrict their growth by law?

Second, Massachusetts is not a cautionary tale of failing schools. It is widely viewed as a high-performing state. Yet the families most able to choose still choose private education. If families are leaving in a state with strong academic reputations, how much faster would the flight be in states with mediocre outcomes and chronic disorder?

Third, Massachusetts offers choice largely within the public system, not through broad state-supported private-school options. Even charter expansion is restricted. Families who can afford to buy their way out are doing it anyway. Families who can’t are stuck.

The conclusion follows: Private education is winning the revealed-preference test. Parents with money choose it — even when it costs them twice.

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Now imagine what happens when parents don’t have to pay twice. How popular would private-school options be if families could use a tax credit or scholarship to offset what they already pay into the system?

That question should terrify teachers’ unions. It should energize lawmakers.

School choice has already become a major political force, and it will only grow as parents lose confidence in public schools. That may help explain why Americans keep moving south. The biggest population gainers from 2014 through 2024 included states like Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida — states with low taxes and high growth, yes, but also states that have embraced school choice more aggressively than Massachusetts has.

Meanwhile, the broader K-12 picture remains grim. Public dissatisfaction has risen sharply in recent years, and the academic and behavioral fallout from COVID-era closures has not fully receded.

Chronic absenteeism remains high. Math scores remain depressed. School leaders report more disruption, more fighting, more bullying, more classroom chaos, and more fear among parents. Seventy-five percent of college faculty “say current students are less prepared in critical thinking, reading, and analysis compared to pre-COVID students.”

At some point, blaming the pandemic becomes a dodge. The system’s decline began before COVID, and it has not reversed since.

If conservatives are serious, they will treat the school-choice win included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act as a starting point, not a finish line. Parents want options. The country needs academic recovery. Competition would do more to improve outcomes — and to break the political stranglehold of teachers’ unions — than another decade of excuses.

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Amy Coney Barrett’s recusal leaves religious liberty twisting in the wind



The U.S. Supreme Court’s 4-4 deadlock last week left intact the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s ruling against St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School — a failure of constitutional courage and a setback for educational freedom.

The tie lets stand a decision that discriminates against faith-based institutions by denying them the same public charter school opportunities extended to secular organizations. It rests on a misguided reading of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause and ignores the protections guaranteed by the Free Exercise clause.

Families deserve more than crumbling bureaucracies and ideological indoctrination. They need real alternatives — the kind private and parochial schools have offered for generations.

Plaintiffs, including the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board, made a compelling case: Excluding St. Isidore solely because of its Catholic identity violates the Constitution.

In Carson v. Makin (2022), the Supreme Court ruled that states cannot deny religious organizations access to public benefits otherwise available to all. Charter schools, while publicly funded, operate independently and serve as laboratories of innovation. St. Isidore committed to meeting Oklahoma’s curriculum standards and serving any student who applied. Its disqualification stemmed from one reason alone: its religious mission.

That’s religious discrimination, plain and simple.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court misread the Establishment Clause, and the U.S. Supreme Court failed to correct the error. The clause doesn’t forbid religious organizations to participate in public programs. It forbids the state to establish an official religion — not from offering families the freedom to choose a Catholic education within a public framework.

St. Isidore wouldn’t force anyone to adhere to Catholic doctrine. It would simply give parents another option — one grounded in a Judeo-Christian worldview and committed to academic excellence. Banning that option undermines pluralism and silences voices that have historically delivered high standards and moral clarity in American education.

Meanwhile, public education in the United States teeters toward collapse. Students trail their peers globally. In some districts, basic literacy remains out of reach. Families deserve more than crumbling bureaucracies and ideological indoctrination. They need real alternatives — the kind private and parochial schools have offered for generations.

Faith-based schools routinely outperform their government-run counterparts. Instead of blocking them from public charter programs, states should welcome their success and harness their model. Innovation doesn’t threaten the system. It might save it.

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, despite claiming to be a Republican, sided with liberal secularists in opposing St. Isidore. His legal brief warned of “chaos” and raised alarm over hypothetical funding for “radical Islamic schools” — a tired slippery-slope argument that ignores the core issue of equal treatment under the law.

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Drummond abandoned conservative principles like school choice and religious liberty. Instead, he backed those who place rigid interpretations of church-state separation above fairness. His stance helped fuel the Supreme Court’s deadlock and undercut Oklahoma families seeking diverse educational options.

The Supreme Court’s failure to resolve this question, due in part to Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s recusal, leaves a constitutional gray area: Can states bar religious organizations from public programs that remain open to everyone else?

Parents deserve the right to choose schools that reflect their values — whether religious or secular. By excluding St. Isidore, the state has effectively declared that faith-based institutions are second-class citizens. That’s not just bad policy. It’s a dangerous precedent in a nation founded on religious liberty.

The founders never intended to wall off religion from public life. They saw the Christian faith and Judeo-Christian values as cornerstones of strong, free societies. Most early American schools were church-run. Today, the pendulum has swung too far to the left. Progressive bureaucrats attack the very moral foundations that made America successful in the first place.

If we want to make America great again, we need to reclaim those values and push back against the cultural nonsense that sidelines faith.

If we want to reverse the decline of American education, we need more choices — not fewer. This fight isn’t over. Oklahoma will keep defending parental rights and religious freedom. The St. Isidore case remains unfinished business — and we intend to finish it. Faith-based schools must have the freedom to educate our children without unconstitutional restrictions.

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